A Paradise Built in Hell

Heaven and hell might be much the same… except that in heaven, everybody helps each other.

In A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, Rebecca Solnit looks at how people responded in the aftermath of disasters such as the earthquakes in San Francisco in 1906 and Mexico City in 1985, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. What she finds, by delving behind the official accounts and media headlines, is an inspiring picture of the innate intelligence and compassion of human beings, who spontaneously self-organise into communities of mutual support.

Following on from last week’s blog post on biomimicry, and other recent posts on chaotic and emergent systems (like Team of Teams, and Fairness, Floyd, Cooper, Cummings, and Chaos), I was fascinated to read how people, displaced and disrupted by natural or manmade catastrophes, rapidly coalesce into improvised supply chains to provide food, clothing, and shelter for those in need.

I could picture it almost like the Boids computer programme that I linked to last week — immediately after the disrupting event, the Boids/humans are milling around in disarray, but after a couple of beats, points of attraction emerge — a town square, or a church, or a charismatic individual — and people start to gravitate towards them. As they gather, they begin to collaborate, often focusing on meeting…